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Profit versus Social Reproduction: Labor Protests in the Sierra Leonean Iron-Ore Mines, 1933-381

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Ibrahim Abdullah
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Extract

This paper addresses the subject of working class redefinition within the context of production and profit in the iron-ore mines. Sierra Leonean miners, especially laborers, struggled to redefine themselves as a group with similar interests against efforts by state and capital to maximize profit and increase productivity. The maximization of profit and the minimization of labor costs were crucial to, and dependent on, the survival and profitability of the iron-ore mines with its labor intensive system of production.

The central proposition on which the argument hinges relates to the struggle for social reproduction in the economic sphere. By social reproduction is meant “the activities and attitudes, behaviours and emotions, responsibilities and relationships directly involved in the maintenance of life on a daily basis and intergenerationally. Among other things, it includes how food, clothing and shelter are made available for immediate consumption” (Brenner and Laslett 1976, 117). Between 1935 and 1938, laborers struck twice, demanding better working conditions, increased wages, and an end to draconian discipline. The laborers also organized (without a formal union) and resisted attempts to control time, workplace situation, and leisure. Their protests ranged from refusal to reside in mining compounds to absenteeism from work. The laborers' struggle for social reproduction in the economic sphere constitutes the most significant variable in the development of the miners' consciousness and their transformation into a working class.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , December 1992 , pp. 13 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1992

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Footnotes

1.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1989 African Studies Association Conference in Atlanta. My thanks to Martin Klein, Fred Cooper, Joseph Engwenyu and Femi Taiwo for comments and suggestions.

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